Team USA Wins Gold at World Team Trophy

(4/13/13) - Congratulations to Team USA - winners of the 2013 World Team Trophy gold medal. Also earning spots on the podium were Team Canada and Team Japan.

The Americans have now medaled in each of the three World Team Trophy events (gold in 2009, silver in 2012).

"I couldn' t be more proud of Team USA," team captain Ashley Wagner said. "Everyone went out and skated with their hearts and really pulled it together during a difficult time. It's not easy to compete at the end of the season and a few weeks after Worlds. But here we are and everyone skated so well. I'm very proud."

Gracie Gold and Wagner were on fire for Saturday's free skate with both ladies earning their best free skating scores of the season to propel Team USA to victory.

Wagner "overcame" an undone hair bun midway through her skate to earn 128.83 points for her final free of the season. She totaled 188.60 points and was second in the ladies event behind Japan's Akiko Suzuki.

Gold was equally strong in her performance and finished just behind Wagner with 188.03 points (also a personal best). Her free skate was worth 127.05 points.

Marissa Castelli and Simon Shnapir finished fifth with 172.30 points. The duo attempted their first ever quad Salchow in their free skate. Though Castelli fell, they take the confidence of putting it out in competition with them.

"I thought it was a great program," she said. "It's our first time putting out the quad Salchow. I went for it, it's been good in practice. We are happy with how we skated overall."

Madison Chock and Evan Bates, the 2013 U.S. silver medalists, maintained their first-place standing after the short dance to win the event and earn 12 points toward Team USA's final score. They earned a season's best score of 98.37 points in the last showing of their "Dr. Zhivago" free dance. Their total score equaled 164.91 points.

Max Aaron executed a solid free skate that featured two quads, one in combination to lead Team USA in the men's event with a total score of 236.62 points. He finished fourth in the event. Jeremy Abbott finished sixth after setting season's best scores in the free skate and overall. Daisuke Takahashi of Japan won the men's event with 249.52 points after winning the free skate.

U.S. skaters qualified based on results of the 2013 ISU World Figure Skating Championships, the ISU Grand Prix and Junior Grand Prix of Figure Skating Series and Final, the ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships and the ISU World Rankings. Teams will compete for a total of $1 million USD in prize money.

Team USA won the inaugural World Team Trophy in 2009 and earned silver last year. A modified version of World Team Trophy has been added to the schedule for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.

Icenetwork.com will feature news, photos and blogs from the event, while a free live stream of the event will be provided on the ISU Skating Channel here. The video will also be available on-demand on icenetwork.com following the conclusion of the event.